Henkilöstöresurssien organisointi suuren alusöljyvahingon torjunnassa

Tässä pro gradu -tutkielmassa tarkastellaan henkilöstöresurssien organisointia suuren alusöljyvahingon torjuntatilanteessa. Tavoitteena on suunnitella Suomenlahden rannikon öljyntorjunnasta vastaavien viranomaisten käyttöön optimaalinen rekrytointistrategia pahimman todennäköisen alusöljyvahingon varalle. Tutkimuksessa selvitetään myös millainen työsopimus öljyntorjuntatyöntekijöiden kanssa voidaan sopia. Näiden lisäksi etsitään vastausta siihen,kuinka työvoima saadaan pidettyä. Tämän laadullisen tutkimuksen teoreettinen osuus toteutettiin kirjallisuuskatsauksena. Tutkimuksen empiirinen aineisto kerättiin haastattelemalla yhdeksää asiantuntijaa syksyn 2009 aikana. Haastattelut olivat muodoltaan puolistrukturoituja teemahaastatteluja. Tutkimustulosten mukaan merkittävin lisätyövoiman tarve ilmenee käsin tehtävässä rantapuhdistustyössä. Etenkin puhdistustyön pitkittyessä pelastusviranomaiset tarvitsevat avukseen ulkopuolista työvoimaa. Rekrytointi suoritetaan muutamien viikkojen kuluessa öljyvahingon aiheutumisen jälkeen. Alueellinen pelastuslaitos suorittaa rekrytoinnin käyttäen tehokkaita, laajan kohderyhmän tavoittavia rekrytointiviestinnän välineitä (esim. sanomalehdet, TV ja Internet). Työntekijöiden kanssa sovitaan määräaikainen, Kunnallista virkaja työehtosopimusta noudattava työsopimus. Tärkeimpinä puhdistustyöntekijöitä motivoivina tekijöinä nähdään työn merkitys yhteiskunnalle, selkeästi määritelty, saavutettavissa oleva tavoite sekä palaute tehdystä työstä.

Palkitseminen Palveluyrityksessä

Henkilöstö on yrityksen menestyksen kulmakivi. Henkilöstön suorittaessa oikeita asioita yritys voi saavuttaa tavoitteensa. Suorituskykyperusteisella palkitsemisella taataan oikeudenmukainen ja kannustava palkitseminen. Tämän vuoksi tässä tutkimuksessa tutkitaan suorituskyvyn johtamista ja erilaisia palkitsemismuotoja sekä edellisten johtamista prosessina. Case-tutkimuksena listattuja teoreettisia aihealueita sovelletaan reaalimaailman yrityksessä. Kohdeyrityksessä suoritetaan myös lomakekysely, jolla mahdollistetaan henkilöstön mukaanotto kehitystoimintaan. Palkitseminen on yrityksen keino kannustaa henkilöstöä tehokkuuteen. Palkitsemisen tulee olla mahdollisimman yksinkertaista ja sen on ohjattava yrityksen tavoitteita edesauttaviin suoritteisiin. Palkitsemismuotoja ovat aineeton ja taloudellinen palkitseminen. Palkitsemisen lähtökohtana ovat tavoitteet ja näille asetettavat mittarit, joilla resursseja ohjataan. Esimiehet mahdollistavat tavoitteiden saavuttamisen, jonka vuoksi heitä on koulutettava suorituskyvyn johtamiseen ja palkitsemiseen. Tällöin yrityksen tavoitteet jalkautuvat läpi yrityksen. Osallistamalla henkilöstö palkitsemisen suunnitteluun, palkitsemisesta on saatavissa kannustava ja oikeudenmukainen. Arvioinnissa ja kyselytutkimuksessa kohdeyrityksen suurimmiksi ongelmakohdiksi nousivat viestintä, esimiestoiminta, seuranta, epäoikeudenmukaisuus ja toiminnan kehittymättömyys. Kehitysehdotus kattaa edellisiä ongelmakohtia korjaavia toimenpiteitä, jolloin kohdeyrityksen palkitsemisesta on saatavissa toiminnan ohella kehittyvä, kannustava ja toimintaa ohjaava kokonaisuus.

Rewards for Motivating Employees

When considering ways to motivate employees, one must keep in mind that each individual is different and therefore everyone is motivated in different way. Employees can have quite different motivators, for example, more money, more recognition, flexible working hours, promotions, opportunities for learning, or discounts for employee and his/her family. Therefore, when attempting to help motivate people, it is important to discover what the individual motivation factors are for each one personally. Another key factor is the variation over time. Nobody experiences a constant set of needs over time, it will change slowly. One of the most fundamental concerns of reward management is how it can help to motivate people so that they achieve their full potential. The development of a performance culture is a typical aim of reward strategy. It is therefore necessary to understand the factors that motivate people and how, in the light of these factors, rewarding process and practices that will enhance motivation, commitment, job engagement and positive discretionary behavior, can be developed. The purpose of this research is to examine more in detail of the total reward systems which are used in two public sectors and their cultural differences and/or similarities. The study is focused on two different public sectors; Vantaa City Authority (Finland) and Hertfordshire County Authority (the United Kingdom). The research questions are: How do public sector employers attempt to reward their employees with a total reward system? • What are the different ways to motivate employees? • What is the reward system in the public sector based on? • What characteristics are included in the total reward system? • How does the culture affect the ways of motivation and rewarding? The benefits of a total reward approach are, for example, the greater impact which means that the combined effect of the different types of rewards will make a deeper and longer-lasting impact on the motivation and commitment of people. It also enhances the employment relationship, meaning that the employment relationship created by a total rewards approach makes the maximum use of relational as well as transactional rewards and will therefore appeal more to individuals. The research findings point out that in Finland rewards are based on just for the employees, recognition of individuals is high, in several cases they reward teams, and organisation climate is important issue for them. In the United Kingdom, the reward system is based on rewarding employees and their families, employer offer several discounts for employees and families, and flexible working hours are favourable.

Transfer pricing as a means for motivating management of profit centers

The main objective of this study is to analyze the role and potential of transfer pricing as a means of management control in large organizations. The special emphasis is on analyzing the potential of transfer pricing when we are motivating the profit center managers. The research approach is theoretical and literature reviews include studies about profit center organizations, performance measurement and analysis, incentive systems, transfer pricing techniques and agency theory. Based on the analysis, it seems that transfer pricing is a suitable tool for controlling, motivating and managing profit center managers. This requires that the performance measurement can be done fairly and transfer prices are set using fair assumptions. The motivating effects of transfer pricing can be enhanced if the reward system is connected to performance measurement system. In synthesis there is presented effects of transfer pricing to profit center managers behavior. There is also presented opinion about fair transfer pricing policy.

Theorizing Formal and Informal Feedback Practices in Management Accounting Through Three Dimensions

The purpose of this doctoral thesis is to widen and develop our theoretical frameworks for discussion and analyses of feedback practices in management accounting, particularly shedding light on its formal and informal aspects. The concept of feedback in management accounting has conventionally been analyzed within cybernetic control theory, in which feedback flows as a diagnostic or comparative loop between measurable outputs and pre-set goals (see e.g. Flamholtz et al. 1985; Flamholtz 1996, 1983), i.e. as a formal feedback loop. However, the everyday feedback practices in organizations are combinations of formal and informal elements. In addition to technique-driven feedback approaches (like budgets, measurement, and reward systems) we could also categorize social feedback practices that managers see relevant and effective in the pursuit of organizational control. While cybernetics or control theories successfully capture rational and measured aspects of organizational performance and offer a broad organizational context for the analysis, many individual and informal aspects remain vague and isolated. In order to discuss and make sense of the heterogeneous field of interpretations of formal and informal feedback, both in theory and practice, dichotomous approaches seem to be insufficient. Therefore, I suggest an analytical framework of formal and informal feedback with three dimensions (3D’s): source, time, and rule. Based on an abductive analysis of the theoretical and empirical findings from an interpretive case study around a business unit called Division Steelco, the 3Dframework and formal and informal feedback practices are further elaborated vis-á-vis the four thematic layers in the organizational control model by Flamholtz et al. (1985; Flamholtz 1996, 1983): core control system, organizational structure, organizational culture, and external environment. Various personal and cultural meanings given to the formal and informal feedback practices (“feedback as something”) create multidimensional interpretative contexts. Multidimensional frameworks aim to capture and better understand both the variety of interpretations and their implications to the functionality of feedback practices, important in interpretive research.

Business intelligence and management control

The purpose of this study is to explore the possibilities of utilizing business intelligence (BI)systems in management control (MC). The topic of this study is explored trough four researchquestions. Firstly, what kind of management control systems (MCS) use or could use the data and information enabled by the BI system? Secondly, how the BI system is or could be utilized? Thirdly, has BI system enabled new forms of control or changed old ones? The fourth and final research question is whether the BI system supports some forms of control that the literature has not thought of, or is the BI system not used for some forms of control the literature suggests it should be used? The study is conducted as an extensive case study. Three different organizations were interviewed for the study. For the theoretical basis of the study, central theories in the field of management control are introduced. The term business intelligence is discussed in detail and the mechanisms for governance of business intelligence are presented. A literature analysis of the uses of BI for management control is introduced. The theoretical part of the study ends in the construction of a framework for business intelligence in management control. In the empirical part of the study the case organizations, their BI systems, and the ways they utilize these systems for management control are presented. The main findings of the study are that BI systems can be utilized in the fields suggested in the literature, namely in planning, cybernetic, reward, boundary, and interactive control. The systems are used both as the data or information feeders and directly as the tools. Using BI systems has also enabled entirely new forms of control in the studied organizations, most significantly in the area of interactive control. They have also changed the old control systems by making the information more readily available to the whole organization. No evidence of the BI systems being used for forms of control that the literature had not suggested was found. The systems were mostly used for cybernetic control and interactive control, whereas the support for other types of control was not as prevalent. The main contribution of the study to the existing literature is the insight provided into how BI systems, both theoretically and empirically, are used for management control. The framework for business intelligence in management control presented in the study can also be utilized in further studies about the subject.